Everything I learned about life, I learned from board games
....OK, maybe that's an exaggeration. But I do find that there are many, many things about either play of a board game, or design of a board game that explains things in life.
Last night, I met a few friends for a German themed night. For dinner, we had delicious sauerkraut, pork tenderloin, spatzler, sausage, German beer, and German chocolate cake. The game of the evening was Power Grid, and of course we had to play the German map.
In the business world, we always talk about the importance of strategy. Tactical management is something I'm very familiar with; figure out what needs to be done, plan it, and execute. So what is strategic planning?
I've always thought of it as playing chess, something I'm not too good at, because I can't remember enough future steps and permutations. But I digress... there was a play at last night's Power Grid that reminded me of strategic planning. Power Grid is a game where players build power plants, purchase fuel/resources for those plants, acquire exclusive rights of providing power to cities on a map, then reap rewards (Elecktros, i.e. $$$) by burning off fuel that's required by power plants to provide enough electricity to cities that you own. Then it starts all over again into the next round where Elecktros are used to build power plants, purchase fuel, ... The game ends when a player acquire his/her 15th city (varies a little depending on # of players). It's a game that requires its players to strike a good balance between the different interconnected components of the game (power plants, fuel, cities) requiring the same limited resource - $/Electros.
Towards the beginning of the game, players typically build smaller power plants that support less # of cities, because the first 9 power plants are placed in ascending order starting with the smallest power plants in the game (the rest of the stack of power plants are then shuffled), and also smaller power plants cost less (and we have less money at the beginning of the game). These smaller power plants support 1-2 cities. With yesterday's game, one of the power plants that came out pretty early on, after the initial 9, was a power plant that takes garbage as fuel, and supports 5 cities. While it was pretty expensive relative to the amount of money we had at that point in the game, and garbage as a fuel was really expensive at that point in the game, I decided to splurge and purchase this garbage-fueled power plant anyways. That, my friends, was a strategic move.
Why was it a strategic move?
1) At that point in the game, this particular power plant was of zero use to me and took a big dent out of my small stack of Electros/$.
2) However, I knew that this power plant will be of value to me in the future. Garbage as a fuel gets cheaper later on in the game. Knowing that I could only have 3 power plants and needing to fuel a minimum of 15 cities to win, the average # of cities each of my power plant must power was 5. Thus purchasing this power plant was an efficient use of my Electros/$ as I would be able to keep the plant through the rest of the game.
There you have it. A strategic move is one that does not necessary bring any immediate benefits; taking into consideration other changes to come, it is a long term investment that reaps rewards in the future. See? You can learn a lot from board games. I highly recommend it!
Last night, I met a few friends for a German themed night. For dinner, we had delicious sauerkraut, pork tenderloin, spatzler, sausage, German beer, and German chocolate cake. The game of the evening was Power Grid, and of course we had to play the German map.
In the business world, we always talk about the importance of strategy. Tactical management is something I'm very familiar with; figure out what needs to be done, plan it, and execute. So what is strategic planning?
I've always thought of it as playing chess, something I'm not too good at, because I can't remember enough future steps and permutations. But I digress... there was a play at last night's Power Grid that reminded me of strategic planning. Power Grid is a game where players build power plants, purchase fuel/resources for those plants, acquire exclusive rights of providing power to cities on a map, then reap rewards (Elecktros, i.e. $$$) by burning off fuel that's required by power plants to provide enough electricity to cities that you own. Then it starts all over again into the next round where Elecktros are used to build power plants, purchase fuel, ... The game ends when a player acquire his/her 15th city (varies a little depending on # of players). It's a game that requires its players to strike a good balance between the different interconnected components of the game (power plants, fuel, cities) requiring the same limited resource - $/Electros.
Towards the beginning of the game, players typically build smaller power plants that support less # of cities, because the first 9 power plants are placed in ascending order starting with the smallest power plants in the game (the rest of the stack of power plants are then shuffled), and also smaller power plants cost less (and we have less money at the beginning of the game). These smaller power plants support 1-2 cities. With yesterday's game, one of the power plants that came out pretty early on, after the initial 9, was a power plant that takes garbage as fuel, and supports 5 cities. While it was pretty expensive relative to the amount of money we had at that point in the game, and garbage as a fuel was really expensive at that point in the game, I decided to splurge and purchase this garbage-fueled power plant anyways. That, my friends, was a strategic move.
Why was it a strategic move?
1) At that point in the game, this particular power plant was of zero use to me and took a big dent out of my small stack of Electros/$.
2) However, I knew that this power plant will be of value to me in the future. Garbage as a fuel gets cheaper later on in the game. Knowing that I could only have 3 power plants and needing to fuel a minimum of 15 cities to win, the average # of cities each of my power plant must power was 5. Thus purchasing this power plant was an efficient use of my Electros/$ as I would be able to keep the plant through the rest of the game.
There you have it. A strategic move is one that does not necessary bring any immediate benefits; taking into consideration other changes to come, it is a long term investment that reaps rewards in the future. See? You can learn a lot from board games. I highly recommend it!
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